Hunter Dickinson free throw gaffes were one of many embarrassing aspects of Kansas basketball loss to BYU

Last week, I wrote about how a certain Jayhawk was not getting to the free-throw line enough. Maybe I shouldn't have.

Hunter Dickinson is, without a question, one of the most skilled big men in the country. The Kansas basketball transfer is averaging 18.3 points and 10.9 rebounds in his inaugural year with the Jayhawks, but what happened to him when he and the team lost to BYU?

Something that separates Dickinson from other bigs in the country is his finesse around the rim. He does not play like the average 7-foot-2 center because his soft touch often makes him appear more smooth than the average player. That includes at the charity stripe, where he shot 73.1% from across the first 23 games of the season.

However, his fortunes from the line have taken a turn for the worse. He shot 6-for-15 on free throw attempts against the Cougars, a large reason why Kansas lost its first home game of the season. There was a stretch in the second half when he missed a pair of free throws on three consecutive occasions.

He is now 11-for-26 from the line since the team beat Baylor earlier this month, a percentage uncharacteristic for the lifetime 73.2% shooter. Dickinson admitted that he had a case of the "yips" when he kept missing them.

“I’d be lying if it didn’t (creep into my mind),” he said. “It definitely affected me out there. I do think I got in my head a little when I started to miss and I think that it kind of snowballed... It really kind of made it hard out there.”

Kansas still needs Dickinson to get to the free throw line to succeed in its future games, especially with how physical opponents get with him in the paint. However, if he can continue to draw fouls and take shots at the charity stripe, it will be hard for the Jayhawks to win when Dickinson is shooting them at such a low clip.